Happy Accidents

"I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you..."

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 08:42:08 -0400

“I began to realize
how important it was
to be an enthusiast in life.
He taught me
that if you are interested in something,
no matter what it is,
go at it
full speed ahead.
Embrace it
with both arms,
hug it,
love it
and above all
become passionate about it.
Lukewarm is no good.
Hot is no good, either.
White hot and passionate
is the only thing
to be.”

- Roald Dahl (via saisonlune)

25. Happiness

Sun, 27 May 2012 18:47:06 -0400

Happiness…Everyone wants it. And in college, when you’re constantly bombarded by all kinds of stress, sometimes it’s hard to find it. There’s countless studies on it, since everyone wants to know what the secret is.

However, while I have had my fair share of bad days and stressful moments, I can safely say that this term has been my best so far.

Coming into college, I didn’t have the slightest idea of what I wanted to do. I took classes in Sociology, International Studies, and countless other subjects that, while I enjoyed learning what I was learning, actually doing the work was painful and I couldn’t imagine spending three more years completely immersed in that subject.

This term, while I was incredibly excited to start in on my first advertising class, I was also worried that I would be greeted with this same feeling again. But I wasn’t. Doing something that you have to do sucks, but when you’re enjoying it, it’s awesome. I still can’t wrap my head around the amount of work I have to do in the next two (!!!!) weeks of the term, but the fact that it’s enjoyable to hunker down in the library and work on makes it all okay.

That being said, cheers to the next three years ahead of me and everyone else in Creative Strategist.

24. Being a Writer

Sun, 27 May 2012 16:48:33 -0400

Week one, first Creative Strategist class. I sat excited and nervous in the strange yellow seat, soaking up everything that was going on. In this soaking, however, there was something that made me twitch. “You’re all writers,” Deb said.

I’d always opposed the idea of writing for some reason. I’d get A’s on the papers I cranked out through high school, but I never enjoyed it very much. Creative writing assignments made me groan, and when I started telling people I was going into the Journalism school at UO and they’d say, “Oh so you want to write?” I would be quick to answer, “No, no, I’m not sure exactly what I want to do yet, but not the writing.”

But greeted with this slightly daunting fact the first day of class, I set off to accept being a writer. But throughout the term, I realized I didn’t have much to accept. Through this blog, as well as further examining the things I already did and enjoyed, I saw that I was, in fact, a writer: I had simply been working with an incredibly narrow definition of what a writer is before.

I’ve always enjoyed journaling and free writing. Whether it was a silly diary filled up dramatized scenarios about my middle school crushed, or the stream of consciousness rambling that appears on my blog today, I have a need to get my thoughts out this way since at times I’m not much of a talker.

I also eat up things that other writers say, whether it’s in their own works or just in general (see my post on my love of quotes). I love this post on Kurt Vonnegut’s advice for writers, and I always get excited when my Spanish classes have a section on Pablo Neurda’s Poems. I pick out lines I love from my favorite songs and scrawl them on pieces of paper and stick them to my bulletin boards, even if anyone else that enters my room doesn’t know where it’s from.

In conclusion, I’d have to say that one of the best things I’ve taken away from this class is realizing that I am a writer, albeit in my own way. While I shied away from it before, it’s safe to say that now it is fully embraced.

23. Learning Curve

Sat, 26 May 2012 21:57:44 -0400

I’ve always been a Photoshop girl. Getting interested in photography when I was younger brought my attention to this program, and I decided I needed to snap it up in anyway possible: Free trials of every version I could get, finally securing an old copy of Photoshop 5 (5, not CS5…big difference, my friends) when I was about 14. The only instruction I ever got was from internet tutorials, when I had a really specific effect I wanted, or problem I was experiencing. However, I learned the most by simply playing around with the program, and seeing what I could do.

It’s been awhile since I’d had to learn a program like that, much less so quickly. However, this term in my gateway class, we got thrown into the rest of the Creative Suite with only the help of Lynda.com. With these tutorials, as well as the help of professors, there are more sources of help than I’ve ever experienced. This time, though, I don’t have the leisure of dinking around the programs on my own sweet time—I have to get in there and figure it out as quickly and as well as I can.

While it was daunting at first, I feel that this learning style fits me well. It’s a challenge, but if I know I can come out of something knowing I taught it to myself, I’m that much more motivated to figure it all out.

My creative strat project, which will be revealed in just about two short weeks (spelling out exactly how much time I have left is incredibly scary…) is something I had to use this strength of mine for. I had the basic tools for what we wanted to do, but my overall vision required some skills I didn’t quite have yet. While it was ambitious, I decided that in the end, it would be worth it-It’ll be something I’m proud of, because it’ll be the highest skill I could push myself to in the time that I had, which with basically starting at zero…

The learning curve for these crazy programs might not be so easy, as I’m fully aware that I’ve only scratched the surface of their capabilities, but knowing that my own personal learning curve is how it is, I can confidently say I’ll be past that surface layer eventually.

22. Calvin and Hobbes Wisdom

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:22:00 -0400

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip that is just as well known for insightful thoughts and philosophical questions as it is for it’s humor. I came across this one the other day, and I know every creative person that has ever been on a deadline can relate…because sometimes that panic does spark the idea.

21. Quotes for the Creative

Wed, 23 May 2012 02:23:13 -0400

As I’ve stated before on this blog, I am more often than not a visually oriented person. I love photographs, illustrations, etc. However, in probably the past year, I’ve become infatuated with quotes. Collecting them in my own way, whether reblogging them on tumblr, doodling them on a scratch piece of paper that I pin to my wall, or placing them in that “Favorite Quotations” section of Facebook that I doubt anyone actually looks at.

As I’ve found in my search for more inspirational (but not cheesy) quotes, there are MANY weird, crappy, cluttered quote websites where you have to dig through hundreds of weird unorganized quotes. I’m the kind of person who will immediately leave a website if it’s not clean and well designed (both visually and functionally), so I gave up on trying to find quotes on my own this way.

However, just recently I stumbled across the blog Occasional Musings, the blog of Rusty Meadows (who is the founder of Tattly, which is a new company that’s making temporary tattoos incredibly cool). His blog, while it’s described as “a destination for things I happen to stumble upon”, is compiled of hand selected, incredible quote. While there isn’t a huge number of them, it is being updated currently, so I’m sure there will be more coming in the future.

Since he’s someone that works in a creative and innovative business, not only are the quotes generally inspiring, but many of them speak specifically to the creative workers. An example is this one:

“Don’t do anything that someone else can do. Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.”

Edwin Land on his personal motto in Forbes Magazine, May 1987, pg. 83.

And this one:

“If you want to build a product, and you want to build a product that is relevant to folks, you need to put yourself in thier shoes and you need to write a story from thier side.”

Jack Dorsey on “The Power of Curiosity and Inspiration” at Stanford University, February 9, 2011.

This has also inspired me to create my own quote blog of sorts eventually…even though the last thing I need in my life is taking on another social media persona.

20. Design Inspiration of the Day

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:13:21 -0400

Sometimes in the creative world, or even just within a liberal arts program in college, the left brain is lost track of and the right brain gets overworked. While logic is great, and creativity is great, the best things happen when the right and left brain are working together.

A beautiful example of this is the Geometry Daily blog. While it’s largely design based, the shapes and patterns get that other side of the brain excited as well. Math and geometery are undoubtedly a huge part of design, whether you realize it or not.

19. Make It Count

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:11:56 -0400

As far as controversial ads go, it’s probably safe to say that the ad that Casey Neistat did recently for Nike’s “Make It Count” campaign is up there. However, it’s not what is in the spot that is controversial…

Instead of using the budget to produce an ad, he took the money and spent it travelling around the world with his friend, until they ran out of money.

Nike may not have been too happy at first with the way their money was spent, but in the end, you can’t deny that Casey Neistat is absolutely, without a doubt,making it count.

The video:

18. 7-11 Re-brand Student Work

Mon, 21 May 2012 04:26:00 -0400

On Tumblr, a decently large population of students like me: studying things such as graphic design or advertising. While many of them mainly use Tumblr as a way to archive things that are inspiring, from time to time they will post their own work, whether personal or for school.

One particularly interesting and relevant one that recently showed up was done by a design student, Ricky Linn. What he posted was part of a project about re-branding 7-11, which is an interesting concept because it is true that 7-11 is not a brand that is very strong. What he did is a market research analysis, compiling information about the brand and company before he makes any decisions on what the re-brand would be like. I thought he did a stellar job on it, both in terms of the information he found out/included, as well as how he visually presented it. Since this is something that is extremely relevant to not only our Creative Strategist class but the advertising world in general, since it is something you absolutely have to do before you start a branding project, I thought I would share it here.

7-11 Re-brand Market Research

And, for ease, a link to a larger version of the image he posted of the project.

In the end, it’s things like this that remind me how great the internet is, because it brings together students from all over the world who are in the same boat. Seeing what other people are doing is alwaysincredibly interesting and helpful.

17. A History Lesson

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:48:56 -0400

History has never been one of my favorite subjects in school, but I’m thinking it may be just because of the format—boring textbooks and date memorization is not really my thing.

However, history is actually really cool, and when things are presented in a more interesting and visual way, I’m enthralled.

An example of this that I found are these photographs taken in Russia over 100 years ago. Not only are they interesting historical photos, but they are also in color—something that was achieved by using red, green, and blue filters over black and white images. Being a complete geek when it comes to analog photography, I think this is absolutely awesome. They’re also crazy in the quality of the photos, they don’t seem like they are from the beginning of the 20th century at all. However, they are, and because of that I got to learn a little history and look at beautiful photographs all at the same time.

16. Compiling Resources

Fri, 18 May 2012 04:22:00 -0400

During my many hours spent messing around on the internet, often I come across things that I want to keep. Half of these are fun things I want to keep, but some are important. Things such as a website with a bunch of cool free fonts, a post about how to ace your job interview, a blog full of design inspiration, easy to understand explanations of HTML and CSS that I want to conquer eventually, the websites of people in the industry that I aspire to be like. However, I’m terrible and putting all these things into one single place. Some I bookmark, some I pin, some I even write down on a scrap piece of paper.

I would like to compile these place I find into one place, not just for myself but to share with other curious thinkers and doers like myself.

That said, I feel like it would be a good use of my time to start that list here, since it’s something my fellow students can see, and something that I can go back and add to in the future.

Design Inspiration:

Typography:

Tutorials/Useables/Learning

General Brain Tickling

To Be Continued…

15. Nothing Can Be Something

Wed, 16 May 2012 22:34:00 -0400

I knew I had to write a blog post today. It was on my list of things to do. However, most days, I seem to have some amount of time to be thinking or observing or “consuming” life around me, and at the end of the day, I usually have something to say.

But today, it became blog post time, and my mind was blank. Immediately after waking up, I went straight to work, then straight to the library to do Spanish homework…and then came upon now, where my mind is blank. I was struck by a horrible feeling that I hadn’t learned anything new or done anything interesting today.

However, I decided to do away with this feeling, since if I’m going to be in the idea industry, I need to have ideas everyday—whether or not the day seems to be particularly inspiring or not at first glance. So, I’m going to take time to look at the smaller things that can be interesting and fulfilling as well.

Talked to my coworker about what she’s learning about in her psychology class: Biological gender differences, such as the digit ratio, correlations between handedness and sexual orientation,
My partner and I got a TON of responses on our survey for our Creative Strategist project about creative inspiration and roadblocks. While some responses were funny/sarcastic (ie, Q: What inspires you? A: Barney Stinson), many were interesting and insightful.
I found my next DIY Project, courtesy of the Free People blog: Dip dye t-shirts. Even if I didn’t make something today, I’ll make something soon.
While doing my Spanish homework, I learned how to better use prepositions (it’s harder than it sounds, I swear.)
Speaking of languages, I also rediscovered this video that offers a visual play on words. Watch carefully!

In the end, even if a day is crazy busy and seemingly uninspiring, make it inspiring. Ask questions, look around, find some humor in the little things, soak it all up. Staying creative is at the base of any job in the advertising industry, and in order to be creative and have fresh ideas, you have to work out those creative muscles no matter how many other things there are to do.

14. Freaking Out is Healthy

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:24:45 -0400

Okay, maybe healthy is an overstatement. Our bodies weren’t ever designed to take on the burdens of stress that today’s society inflicts on us. However, it’s reality. And while stress isn’thealthy, I’ve found that I often need a moment (or a few moments) of stress, anxiety, and general freaking out to get me to move past a certain stage.

I was reminded of this truth this morning, when we had advertising students that went on the University of Oregon New York trip come talk about their experiences in our class this morning. Sitting there in awe, my general thoughts could be explained in two ideas:

1- This is amazing, these people are amazing. I want to be there, I want to do that.

2- HOW AM I EVER GOING TO GET THERE? I can’t be that great. I’m scared of all of this, it’s too big.

However, my thoughts don’t ever stop at number two. This above example is a minor, hypothetical version that went on in my head-Sometimes it’s bigger, more real, and more pertinent. Getting to that point, however, makes you realize that you literallycan’tstay at that point. You have to move past it, and to move past it you have to stop freaking out, hold your breath, and dive in head first.

One of my new favorite websites, strikingtruths.com, provides daily manifestos embedded in beautiful design. Pulling a quote from this particular one, Seth Godin says “Safe is risky”. This is exactly what my freaking out sessions make me realize over and over again: yes, what I have to do (whatever that thing may be) is scary and daunting…but not taking the risk is even riskier.

13. Life's Better

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:52:00 -0400

One of my favorite, favorite, favorite brands, not only for their product but for their brand image and the way their company operates, is Billabong. I’ve spent years being enamored with their cool, beachy, living simple and free image. One thing that I also love is how they try to give back to the environment, especially the oceans, since that’s the place that their brand lives in.

A recent campaign of theirs (although I feel that the word campaign doesn’t even begin to describe it), dubbed “Life is Better in Boardshorts” does all of the things that Billabong is about, and beyond. I first found out about it from a print ad, that just was like any other Billabong print ad but with the “Life is Better” tagline. Usually I’m more about the visual aspects of ads than the actual copy, but this one blew me away: Simple, interesting, completely resonant with their brand. So, curious, I went to the website, and was greeted with this message:

Simple, fun, interactive through social media, conveying the brands message while getting consumers to become part of that mantra at the same time, and, in the end, helping out the world around us. Surfaid is an incredible organization, that should be known and supported anyway, but the fact that they fit together so well with Billabong makes this campaign just that much better. There are tons of other surfwear brands out there, in the end, with campaigns like this and much more, Billabong just seems to be doing it the best.

So, in the end…Life is better when you’re Billabong.

Bonus: The video (or as they call it on their website, the “free movie”) associated with the campaign…INCREDIBLE.

12. Brand Spirit

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:01:04 -0400

THIS JUST IN: I found one of the best Tumblr blogs out there this morning.

It’s called Brand Spirit, and the “About” section reads as follows (since it would be a disservice for me to try and explain it):

“Brand Spirit: every day for 100 days, I will paint one branded object white, removing all visual branding, reducing the object to its purest form. I can purchase each object for less than $10, it can be something I own, something another person gives me, or something I find.”

How. Cool. Is. That.

The “About me” goes on to explain that the man that curates the blog, Andrew Miller, works as a strategist at a design and branding agency, which explains how he came up with this brilliant idea. Being constantly surrounded by brands/branding, it’s a fresh take to see what products look likewithout their brand. Scrolling through the blog, many are still recognizable when covered in white paint: and that says something about the impact of brands, that they are burned into our minds just by shape. However, he does provide a caption of what each brand the product shown is, for those ones that are a little more ambiguous.

Here are some of my favorites:

Nintendo

Pringles

Trivial Pursuit

11. Beautifully Different Soccer Posters

Thu, 10 May 2012 20:09:29 -0400

Some incredibly excellent design work I came across lately, via Pinterest, are these soccer posters designed by Zoran Lucic:

The rest of the “Sucker for Soccer” series can be found here, on Behance. Take some time to scroll through them all, I can assure you won’t be dissapointed.

I really liked these posters for a few reasons. One, they’re all right up my style of graphic design: some handwritten looking type, some mixed media looking elements, a few funny bits of writing (as seen on the Beckham poster above, “Would someone please tell David Beckham to retire”), good muted colors, etc.

However, not all of the posters have all of these elements—in fact, some are very different from one another. But they all flow together as a series; similar but different.

Lastly, I love that this is so far away from what you usually see in sports design. Sports related graphics are usually all about intensity, flashy colors and photographs, big bold letters in your face. These posters put a completely different spin on things, and while it does stray far away from the norm, it turned out fantastic and unique.

10. Metacognition is a Big Word.

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:00:58 -0400

Something I’ve been thinking a lot about this term is how much I love learning. I’m dying a little bit with a full course load/taking my first upper division credits, but I’m loving every bit of the information that I’m consuming. That being said, I’ve also been thinking a lot about how I learn, and how I think. Bringing us to that big word: metacognition. It’s one of those concepts that blows your mind in a way, which is something I enjoy. It was probably also on my mind because during the first week of Creative Strategist, Deb mentioned it when talking about her book, The Creative Process Illustrated. In that book, people from within the advertising industry illustrated how they think—therefore, to do this, they had to be thinking about thinking.

By nature, I’m a very introspective person. This part of my personality is often regarded by others as introversion or shyness at best, snobby or uninterested at worst. But really, that’s not what it is at all. Most of the time, I’m just taking everything in in my own way-observing and listening, participating and appreciating in my own way. I attribute much of my creativity to this part of my personality—If you don’t take anything in, you won’t be able to put anything out.

Due to my introspective nature, I’m always THINKING about my introspective nature-hence, metacognition is happening in my brain all the time. Sometimes I do get too stuck inside my own head, but for the most part I think it’s a good thing. When considering my personal manifesto, this will definitely be part of it. I believe you have to get stuck inside your own head in order to know yourself well. Have a constant dialogue with yourself. Go to a park, lay on the grass, close your eyes, and explore your own mind.

09. Where Do Bananas Come From?

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:34:16 -0400

The other day, I grabbed a banana to eat on the go on my way out the door. Life is hectic, portable food is an absolute necessity. As I peeled the fruit, I took notice of the DOLE sticker. Usually I wouldn’t notice it, but this one caught my eye due to the message on it: “Visit our farm at Doleorganic.com: Farm #698”. So, I did. I went to the website, and right on the homepage is a drop down menu with all the different farm numbers. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with Farm #698.

Doing further exploration, I went to their facebook page, where they have tons of albums dedicated to the different farms as well as different events and organizations they have sponsored. I had no idea that they were doing any of these things before I started looking into it, and that is something I appreciate as well—I’m not a big fan of brands that go around showing off how ethical and good they are, even if it is true.

This level of customer connection and transparency is something that EVERY brand should be doing today. That simple instruction on their fruit sticker did multiple valuable things. First, it brought me to their website: every company is trying to create traffic to their online presence nowadays, and sometimes it’s a difficult task. Secondly, it let me see exactly where my banana came from. It put a face to the farmers and let me see that the physical location my food came from is doing well. And lastly, it connected me to the brand. I never really gave Dole a second thought before this experience, and now I have a connection to them. I appreciate that they are making the effort to connect their customers to the origin of their product, and I appreciate that they are exercising sustainable and just business practices. I will make an effort to buy Dole Organic bananas whenever I can now.

08. Stream of Conciousness Brainstorming.

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:02:00 -0400

About that midterm paper. In the midst of all my other midterms, I’m just now beginning. BUT DON’T WORRY! It will be great. I work well under pressure. I swear.

As a prewriting/brainstorming process, I often just sit down with a blank document and let out everything that comes into my head about the topic. It proves to be very helpful, especially when posed with a vague topic. So, for our Creative Strategist prompt, it was perfect. There were blocks of run on sentences, but I also came to a few bulleted lists about the responsibilities that brands themselves have, as well as the responsibilities that the people who work within the brands have. Enjoy some rambling on brand thinking, and please ignore the grammar/informality/etc.

…..So, what is this responsibility that brands have? A bulleted list shall help.

Brands should seek to do GOOD. If they do GOOD for people and the world we live in, then they will do well in earnings or do well for their investors.
Brands should be environmentally conscious. They should really be environmentally conscious, not just slapping the word “green” “enviro” “or “natural” on to their product but not having it mean anything. They should be environmentally conscious because it is important, AND because it will get them more business.
Brands should inspire. They shouldn’t just simply be the product, but they should elicit something within the consumer that happens BEYOND the product. A downfall of a largely capitalist society is that consumerism sometimes trumps art and learning and science and discovery. If the consumerism can CONTAIN these things and inspire them within the consumer, a happy medium is reached.
Brands should do things within the community that is beyond selling their product. This is doing good, but doing good on a micro level. If Ninsaki Brewing Company is based in Eugene, they should support local non-profits and sponsor local charities and help raise awareness/funds for local problems. They do, and it’s exactly what a brand should do on a local level.

And now, for the actual people who work within the brand. The people who make the brand what it is. What is their responsibility? More bullets, please.

Brand managers/leaders/designers should probably love their job. If they don’t love their job, they don’t love their brand, and so there can’t be any truth in anything they are trying to say about the brand, because they probably don’t believe it themselves.
They should understand things from a consumers point of view. They should know that a consumer doesn’t want to be lied to, tricked, or deceived.
They should know the core values of the brand, and fully understand what the heart of the brand really is. And they should fully believe in those values as well. Insert a quote from Scott Bedbury here.
They should want to better society from within capitalism and consumerism. They should believe that these things can be good, and strive to make them so.
They should be socially conscious and morally good. They should NOT make slurs with their products, discriminate in any way, copy or plagiarize in anyway, step on littler businesses on their path to success, etc. They shouldn’t do these things outwardly OR behind the backs of the consumer that they think won’t be noticed…(this is not okay, Urban Outfitters..)

07. RELEVANT

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:43:28 -0400

I came across this picture in the depths of Tumblr earlier today. Usually I scroll around pretty fast, but this is something I stopped at. It’s the most simplified and perfected graphic representation of how an idea goes from beginning to end. I wish I’d thought of this, because it’s the perfect visual representation of the creating process. It starts with an idea, but when you first regurgitate that idea into a physical thing, it’s jumbled and crazy and not exactly how you want it to be. Only with more insight, more attempts, and more changes, will the clarity, focus, and simplicity of GOOD design be brought about.